Monthly Archives: July 2010

I have quite obsessively checked the dashboard of my blog to spy on how many views I got. 85 on the first day – Wow! That was surely unexpected, but more imminently elevating! Then crash! bam! the next day it fell to 15 and then 4, then 2, and finally I had them ducks making me cry ‘ZERO’ with alarming disdain, self-pity, indifference, and then some renewed resolve. I had a tough time convincing myself that I am no Nicholas Kristof or Jug Suraiya or Chetan Bhagat even (my peeve with his writing I shall reserve for my other whiny blogspace), to be entitled to a dedicated daily following. Correction – Not Yet. Not when some four people demonstrated persistent interest a day ago, and helped me sustain the confidence that this is a model worth building upon.

This week:

Jest aside, I have honestly been thinking of what to write here for the past week amidst the frantic typing of code for my data analysis and cover-letters inviting potential bosses to see how we can together marry numbers and statistics to diseases and drugs. I even thought of something today, but I will save it up for a dry day when I have no other ideas.

So I made a last minute decision (err, not entirely like George Sampson’s turnabout that well, quite changed his life) to write about an issue quite close to my heart. If I had to type the keywords, they would be – schools, India, education, hobby, career, vocation, creativity, business, encourage, counseling. Quite a few there, but I guess they encapsulate quite well what I am about to think aloud in this space.

“Never let schooling get in the way of your education”.

I can quite imagine Mark Twain, in the way I have envisaged him to be, bellowing aloud these famous words that apparently have not quite been traced back to his genius directly. Nevertheless, in my life it has been firmly entrenched only of late, with the entry of an almost-better half, here on referred to as Sheraton.

When one hears this propaganda at the least of once every fortnight, the cochlear nerves are bound to respond and let the brain know that something ought to be done about this. I believe, that the idea had become tangible in conversations with my brother-in-law, then new to the family who pushed me to leave medical school right in the middle of the academic structure and pursue a better aerated, less stifling option. However, going further back into history, I credit the roots of this concept mostly to my sister, R, whose epigraph should really read “Padhke kisne kya paaya?” (literally translated as whoever benefited from schooling).

My blog – a business that schooling did not prepare me for.

I am here to sell my ideas for free, invite some criticism and failures, build upon my losses and capitalize on my gains, and refurbish my old ideas to more acceptable standards. (In the bargain, I hope to send down some pearls and marvels of wisdom 😉 ) Having said this, when I listen to Cameron Herold, I think, well I am an entrepreneur in a tweaked definition of the word. Writing and trying to make sense of this world is my business here, and that is exactly what I am trying to improve upon. Mark Twain and Cameron Herold together inspire me to write this post today, that I hope would help me fine tune my own ideas about how we see a link between the following keywords: kids, business, career, idea, money, dreams. Continue reading →

The first thing that comes to my mind is … wait a minute, not Lewis Carroll’s lost girl, but Randy Pausch’s program for 3D scripting. In his seminal talk in the Last Lecture series at Carnegie Mellon University, amidst his other achievements, Dr Pausch wonderfully talked about being an `imagineer’. He talked about directing the development of Alice, a 3D scripting program that was borne of his desire to earn his star inside the Walt Disney walls of fame. More than that, he wanted kids to imbibe his excitement for being an `imagineer’. That’s when, as he says, putting his Mad Hatter hat on, he steered Alice towards helping kids learn computer programming without them even realizing it.

What struck me most was the way his mentee Dr Caitlin Kelleher has now taken the program to the most unlikely users and popularized it among them – middle school girls! As part of her dissertation, she introduced the program as a story telling activity where young girls were actually writing software to narrate their stories. I absolutely understand and truly appreciate the gravity of their effort; especially given that I myself am struggling to learn the ABCs of programming and code for data analysis as part of my master’s thesis.

From Kelleher’s Alice homepage

“Storytelling Alice provides a motivating context in which to learn programming. A study comparing middle school girls’ experiences with learning to program in Storytelling Alice and in a version of Alice without storytelling features (Generic Alice) showed that:

Users of Storytelling Alice spent 42% more time programming than users of Generic Alice.

Users of Storytelling Alice were more than three times as likely to sneak extra time to work on their programs as users of Generic Alice (51% of Storytelling Alice users vs. 16% of Generic Alice users snuck extra time to program).

Despite the focus on making programming more fun, users of Storytelling Alice were just as successful at learning basic programming concepts as users of Generic Alice.”

What next, Dr Kelleher – inner city schools of Baltimore? (These are schools in the poorest and crime-stricken areas of Baltimore, and possibly the whole country). Imagineering it into those dark locations – that would indeed be sheer magic!

I visited CMU, Pittsburgh in November 2009 and this plaque adorns the wall next to the Randy Pausch Labs door. The bridge connecting the Computer Science and Fine Arts building has been built and it looks magnificent at night when its walls are lit up in neon lights. I was so fascinated and overwhelmed that I could not disturb the sanctity of that moment with a flash. A sacred place it is for me.

For someone like me who was taught LOGO and BASIC at a time when Windows 98 had stormed the world, ALICE would have been a delightful window into wonderland! If not me, for sure some other talented girls in class who either never had an opportunity or were daunted by the seemingly Y-chromosome inhabited worlds of `engineering’ and `technology’.

Looking forward, we can, in our capacity as alumni offer to sponsor such programs in our schools. More like a tribute to our alma maters, and a gift to our juniors.

I wonder why we say, no news is good news! Surely, that’s not entirely true. Yet, as I see it, news that sells and makes headlines is positive only under extraordinary circumstances. Sheraton sent me a Robert Anthony quote, “most people would rather be certain they’re miserable than risk being happy”. Indeed, bad news’ sell like hotcakes, and we cannot really be blamed for a despondent disparaging view of our world.

Global warming, national problems, natural calamities, and man-made wars notwithstanding, there is enough goodness in the world that makes us live out our entire lifespan; and that’s what I’d like to `stop press’ about.

Before I wander away from my introduction, let me welcome you to my blog on wordpress. I am Harini Sarathy, a 1983 born optimistic, sometime-wannabe doctor, sometime-wannabe epidemiologist, and a sometime-wannabe journalist. As a doctor and epidemiologist, your health and public health are my concern. Health is inextricably linked to happiness… and that should quite well explain why I am here to sell good news for free!

I plan to write once (twice maybe) a week after looking out for happy, inspiring, courageous, funny, rewarding stories that I believe must be spread around. It could be your story, or stories of hitherto unknown people. It could be Socratic philosophy or an indulgent essay. Whatever it may be, it will assuredly be positive and a happy reminder that the world around us, amidst all it’s problems and spills and scandals and calamities, remains and continues to be a great place to live in.

Welcome to my attempt at building a one-blog stand of feel-good essays. I do hope you will join me in getting mired in mirth.